Long Habits Poems

It may have been the devil himself who prompted the kids in my schoolyard back in 1947 to chant "Patsy Foley's roly-poly from eating too much ravioli."

At first, no one could remember who started the...

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Rejection Slips 3

Rejection Slip
by Michael R. Burch

Whenever my writing gets rejected,
I always wonder how the rejecter got elected.
Are we exchanging at the same Bourse?
(Excepting present company, of course!)

When editors reject my poems, did I slip...

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Villanelles

The villanelle is a poetic form based on repetition, with a double refrain. 



Villanelle: The Divide
by Michael R. Burch

The sea was not salt the first tide...
was man born to sorrow that first day, 
with the...

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"Peace in the Nowhere"

Ghosts remain in this place
they read their words 
marked each day on walls
like prayers, it gives them
peace in the nowhere

someplace relevant to go

Ghosts commune in this place
disowned long ago or walked
off the...

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Poems about Things that Break I
 
These are poems about things that break and/or shatter: a bubble, glass, a mirror, a twig or tree limb, a thunderstorm, cities and towers in times of war, old...

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Poems about Things that Break III
 
These are poems about things that break and/or shatter: a bubble, glass, a mirror, a twig or tree limb, a thunderstorm, cities and towers in times of war, old...

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Imitation! Creative Compliment, Lacking in Originality, or Plagiarism? 

This week takes me back to college days. I was taking a graduate course (as a Physics major)   in 'Modern Poets' at the University of...

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I got up this morning in a good mood 
searching for solitude in the distant skies
And watching the clouds rolling by
I stopped and listened to the sounds around me
While contemplating my sacred destiny
Barking dogs and...

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I was a seventeen year old senior in a coed, catholic high school.  Our gym classes however were still all boys and all girls.  My senior year we had gym every other day...

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I have a lot to write and say, buddy, so hear me out some more
Don’t make me feel lower than I have ever felt before…
Listen, understand and stay quiet until I say no more…sorry if...

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In the dark of night a wind took hold,
With powers charged to shake the sky,
By moody swings of gods up high,
Their breath alone enraged and bold.

In the dark of night history spoke,
Of a world alive...

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Brian’s Poet of Note – ‘Herman Hesse’ Week 2

This week I thought I would discuss translating poetry from another language. I just finished retranslating from German this poem ‘Stufen’ from Hesse’s famous novel ‘The Glass...

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Inxs of poison from iron maiden scorpion mamma and ac/dc charged aries papa

Although gainfully unemployed 
(fate now finds me receiving 
social security disability – 
for approximately 
the last baker's dozen years -
the yeast divine intercession...

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Our cognitive and emotional struggles against dissonance of all varieties,
and struggles for more love and consciousness and health
work better as decompositions laid out between Ego and Eco,
as cooperative nondual co-arising partners,
Left and Right MindBody
of one...

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A lovely outcome for our recreational journey,
or Way
or Truths,
or LoveLives,
whichever you prefer to pick out
from among this graced array,
tells a multi-generational creation story
of cosmic sacred ecology
and Earth's evolution revolutions,
drawing on and with 
scientific deductive knowledge
both...

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“He fought often and once bled in the cause of freedom, but his habits of War did not lessen in him the peaceful virtues which adorn his private life.”  Doctor Benjamin Rush, signer of...

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Personal Worth 
Everyone has value. Everyone has been called for such a time as this to use their unique gifts and experiences to serve others and to serve God. But what are those gifts? And...

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A few words about my good friend, Fr. Time, perhaps over-invested 
in developing this language and these dialects of evolution.

Not to blame someone for doing too good a job,
but why shine so much light on...

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Don't you think that this title is darkly divine?
But, of course, there will have to be weirdness that’s funny,
Though my nightmares are many and have complex arcs
There’s some risk here I might have to work...

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"The discrepancies are many, the dalliances are few,
both pitched against one dynamic, lifelong achievement"

Poking through the woods of the Mill Grove Audubon Estate,
suddenly came upon an ivy-covered studio shed
tucked away amongst foliage near Perkiomen Creek,
apparently...

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Whether you have come to possess this compendium of doggerel confessions by chance or by choice, should you decide to venture beyond this page, I politely suggest you consider the contents to be nothing more...

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Part I.

Harvest time was winding down, 
I was taking lunch in town, 
After spending six long hours plowing stubble.
Washing up I met a man, 
Guessed he was a harvest hand, 
His combine crew, he said,...

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Now we along one of hard rims are brought;
And a thin spray on the  brook is fixed, 
So shield to rims and water is begot.

As Flemings, Cadsand and Bruges bewixt,
Fearing the high waves pouncing...

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Ours was daily mysterious,
sometimes near mystical, 
rapture;
a sensual yet platonic
dorm-mate love affair,
within the only male grad student corridor
at SFSU.

He was the presumably straight Vietnam veteran
southern white good ol' boy,
athletically studying Japanese,
with a gentle passion for...

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Shortly after the naming they made arrangements to visit Jessica's home in Nordgrend.  Her father, Raðulfr, sadly, had also succumbed to the last ringing of life's chimes as time's pendulum could no longer be...

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